Today Digitimes sent out a “before going to press” email about an article to be published soon:
| “AMD delays Ryzen 9 3950X launch due to unsatisfactory clock speeds, sources claim“ |
| “Unsatisfactory clock speeds are associated with the delayed launch of AMD’s 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X processor, which has nothing to do with support from its foundry partner TSMC, according to sources at motherboard makers.” |
I am not sure if this was picked up by Wall Street, but because of Trump’s tough talk against China at the UN, plus his problem with the phone call to Ukraine about Biden’s son, leading to a renewed call for impeachment, the market tanked and AMD most of all, down a whooping $1.12.
AMD had entered its quiet time prior to earnings on September 13, so this is a great time to spread rumors taken from “sources at motherboard makers”. The fact is there is nothing to substantiate this claim.
Previously AMD had already came out and pushed back the launching of Ryzen 3950X to November. AMD had cited an incredible level of demand for its chips. I had already written about this on September 21.
Meanwhile, AdoredTV had written an article about TR/3950X being pushed back to November, and speculated that the yield at TSMC is so good, such that 6 cores chiplets are actually hard to come by. That would explain the relative tight supply of 3900X. Meanwhile, all the 8 cores chiplets are being prioritized toward Epyc. The conclusion is that AMD will turn in a great Q3 result.
Additionally, AMD had also launched the Epyc 7H12, which targets the HPC segment. Anandtech covered this chip well, here. The Epyc 7H12 is made of 64 cores of superior silicon such that at 280W power, the base clock is increased from 2.25 Ghz to 2.6 Ghz, all cores sustained. This is great for the HPC and high performance enterprise market, for clients who are capable of utilizing liquid cooling for its data centers. I am sure this will require many high quality 8 cores chiplets, which would have been used for Ryzen 3950X and/or TR 3. However, the margin is even better if these are sold as Epyc 7H12!
Once again, I feel this talk of TSMC 7 nm supply constraint for AMD is nonsense. AMD was an early 7nm customer, and definitely will not be forced to go to the back of the line for additional 7 nm orders.
Q3 ER could not come soon enough!
AMDinvestorblog 